Journey
Journey was a male Rebel sorcerer who was kidnapped alongside his newlywed wife by the Black Company and forced to become one of the new Taken. ''The Black Company'' Journey was a male sorcerer of significant magnitude who fought with the Rebel against the Lady's Empire. When several original members of the Circle of Eighteen (the Rebel leadership) were neutralized by the Lady's forces, Journey and his newlywed wife Feather were promoted to fill two vacancies. The actions of neither Journey nor Feather prior to this point were unspecified in the Annals. Journey and his new wife Feather were both captured and subdued during their honeymoon by the Black Company, which was an elite unit in service to the Lady. Bound, they were smuggled through Rebel territory, and were finally delivered by the Howler's flying carpet to the Tower at Charm. There, they were subjected to the horrors of the Rite of Taking and the Eye, during which they became the second and third members of the new Taken. Journey and the rest of the new Taken, including later additions, dressed identically with the sole exception of Whisper. After disappearing into the Tower, Journey and Feather reappeared dramatically near the end of the Battle of Charm, where the world now learned they had been Taken just as Whisper had. When Lord Jalena's troops began to waver and were pushed by the Rebel into one of the retaining walls outside the Tower, Journey personally put on an inspirational display with a blazing spear behind them all. Jalena's men regained their confidence and pushed the Rebel back briefly. Soulcatcher, after betraying the Lady, attempted to flee the battle by throwing Journey off his black stallion and stealing it. ''Shadows Linger'' Journey and his wife Feather assisted Whisper and the Lady in Juniper in Shadows Linger. At the Battle of Juniper, Feather became the first of the Lady's Taken to die: she was killed in combat by the Black Watchers. Outraged, Journey stole the flying carpet of the Limper after his own was destroyed by the Black Watchers. He lost that carpet as well. During the chaotic aftermath of the battle in Juniper, Journey lost track of the Black Company survivors. About 70 of them, led by the veteran sergeant Elmo, fled the city on horseback and rejoined the rest of the band later, cutting all ties with the Empire. Journey was not named by the Lady as a co-conspirator of Whisper and Feather in the Taken's secret plot which had been uncovered by the Captain. This strongly implies that, for unspecified reasons, Journey's wife was keeping that plot a secret from him. Before The White Rose Journey now served the Lady in the Imperial campaign against the breakaway Black Company, which fled eastward for 4 years after the events in Juniper. With Whisper, he harried them the entire way. It is very likely that he played some role in the Battle of Queen's Bridge, during which the Company lost half of their number. Despite the Imperial efforts, the Black Company survived and became the nucleus of the New White Rose Rebellion with Darling as their leader. By the start of The White Rose, they had been directing Rebel activity for 2 years from a cavern called the Hole out in the Plain of Fear, where neither Journey nor Whisper could harm them. ''The White Rose'' The Lady eventually stationed Journey alongside Whisper in the village of Spit as part of the Imperial encirclement of the Plain. At Spit, he and Whisper raised their intimidating stellae and held the more peaceful western bounds of the Plain. The locations of all the Taken in the encirclement (and the names of the five newest Taken: Benefice, Learned, the Creeper, Blister, and Scorn) were gathered by the Rebel agent Sir Tucker and reported by the informant Corder in person to Darling and the Company in the Hole. Journey was not named again in The White Rose but it is known that he participated in the events described below. Battle outside Horse All of the Taken, including Journey, were present with Croaker and the Lady herself in the modest town called Horse, and he participated in the dramatic airborne attack on the windwhales over Darling's army as it marched westward toward them. In this fiery battle, Journey presumably played a major role since the primary Imperial combatants were aboard the flying carpets. This was an Imperial victory during which at least three windwhales were killed and death was rained down upon the Rebel infantry and their allied formations of Plain creatures. At the Battle of the Barrowland After the Lady called a ceasefire and forged an alliance with Darling, Journey became a new ally of the Black Company. Alongside the rest of the new Taken, Journey next participated in the Battle of the Barrowland. He presumably played a key role in the opening combat against the Dominator's monsters as they were systematically awakened and wiped out. He was certainly one of the Taken who brought formidable sorcery to bear against Toadkiller Dog and his ragtag army of savages from the Great Forest outside Darling's null. After Dominator was finally killed, in the aftermath of the battle, Silent performed the Rite of Naming on the Lady, stripping her of all her magical power. Because of the Lady's fail-safe sorcery, this caused the new Taken to become powerless as well, and they lost all control of their carpets. Journey was almost certainly one of the Taken who immediately plummeted, screaming, from the sky. But, although Croaker recorded that all the new Taken were "undone, and soon dead", later events would reveal that Journey actually survived this event. Mention in Bleak Seasons Many years after the Battle of the Barrowland, during the sixth chronicle (Bleak Seasons), it was confirmed that Journey in fact did not die at the Barrowland as Croaker had presumed. Otto and Hagop reported reliable testimony from Imperial officials that Journey, as well as Whisper, Learned, the Creeper, and Blister, were all still alive and residing within the Empire's domain... albeit still stripped of their magic abilities. Journey and Whisper have the unique distinction of escaping death despite membership in both the Circle of Eighteen and the Taken, two groups with grim odds of survival. In other media * In the 2000 PC video game Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer, there is a non-playable character named Journey. Category:Characters Category:Wizards Category:Rebel Category:Enemies of the Black Company Category:Circle of Eighteen Category:New Taken Category:Allies of the Black Company